Blind Bat
by Ayrton
Summary: What if things had taken a different turn when Avon was waiting for Shrinker in a Federation prison? Warning for darkness/angst


This was inspired by a challenge on B7 Friday: 'Things Forgotten'

Blind Bat

The prisoner didn't look all that impressive and Shrinker was convinced he'd talk by the end of the day. They always did. That's why he was the best and he took pride in his work.

The inmate didn't look very worried, though and Shrinker gathered that the implanted homing device gave his new victim a false sense of safety. The prisoner pretended to be massaging a strained muscle in his neck but Shrinker knew he was just checking if the implant was still there. He had seen him do it before, when he had gone through the vid recordings. He always observed uncooperative prisoners in their cells, before he went in to interrogate them . The first thing this one did when he had regained consciousness after a session, was to massage that exact spot below the right ear.

"Don't worry, it's sending all right."

"What are you talking about?"

"The implant in your neck." Shrinker said with more than a touch of smugness.

"I don't know what you're talking about." The prisoner eyed the interrogator with a puzzled look.

"There is a homing device implanted in your neck."

"A what ?"

O, he was good! Very good indeed. The expression on his face would have convinced a less experienced interrogator with ease.

"We detected it as soon as we picked you up." Shrinker continued with a smile. " We've been monitoring it ever since. It's been sending steadily for five days."

"Five days? Is that how long I've been here?"

"Your friends aren't coming."

Shrinker couldn't detect any sign of disappointment on the man's weary face when he stated this. He seemed genuinely bewildered, though.

The prisoner searched his memory on the trigger-word 'friends', but he could only remember the torture….. vividly. He remembered the faces of his tormentors, the smell of his own blood and the taste of it in his mouth. He could remember the beautiful young doctor, who on several occasions had injected him with drugs, but he couldn't for the life of him remember anything or anyone else.

The new interrogator closed in on him and produced a small device, which he pointed at the man's face.

"Do you know what this is?"

It looked very familiar indeed and before he realized what it was, he had said it.

"It's a laser probe."

"It's a laser probe. Now we're tired of waiting for your friends to come to us, so we have decided to go to them."

Shrinker had spoken with sudden energy and crowded the prisoner, forcing him up against the wall.

"You're going to tell me who they are and where they are."

"I can't.." The man said, suddenly overwhelmed by fear.

Shrinker always loved to see the initial panic in their eyes when he threatened to do them bodily harm. It was almost as good as the actual torturing.

"Please I can't!"

"I'm going to start by burning out your eyes."

"Please..."

Shrinker felt elated at the smell of real fear from his victim. He went on relentlessly.

"And you're going to start by telling me your name. Now that's not too difficult is it? Who are you?"

A sudden sense of panic overwhelmed the man. He realized with horror that he actually didn't know his name. He didn't know why they had locked him up and he hadn't a clue as to the identity of his friends. He completely lost the ability to think when the laser probe came dangerously close to his left eye.

"I do not know."

Although his mind was in complete panic, his voice now sounded steady and calm when he stated this, as if a mechanism in his body took control of his feelings and prevented them from surfacing.

"Are you trying to tell me that you have lost your memory?" Shrinker sneered.

"I don't know who I am.", the prisoner said calm but deliberate. "I don't know why I'm here. I don't know what am I supposed to have done. And I don't know you."

"You know how many prisoners have tried that routine on me? O, please sir, your drugs have messed up my mind. I'm suffering from a bad case of amnesia."

The man closed his eyes, when he realised that his tormentor was actually going through with it. The laser beam burned the skin right next to his eye, making him scream in agony. The smell of burning flesh was nauseating and the man doubled over in waited patiently until he had had calmed down. Then he spoke again, slowly and distinctly."Now the next one will not miss your eye. And when I'm done with the other eye, I'll start on your eardrums."

They shipped him to another location the day after their first encounter. Shrinker's transfer to the prison on QHD5, where the Federation kept their political prisoners, was decided long ago. Being a fastidious man, Shrinker didn't like unfinished business, so he arranged for his new challenge to be transferred with him. Blind Bat, as he was fittingly baptized, was shipped out on the same shuttle.

The man maintained that he had no idea who he was. Nor did he know why he'd had a homing device implanted in his neck, which was removed, of course, before he was transferred.

After a couple of weeks Shrinker began to lose interest in him. By then, Blind Bat was nothing more than a shadow of the man Shrinker had met in that prison cell on earth. A wasted body, malnourished, smelly, abused, verging on insanity, because he was locked up in his own world, cut off from everything through the loss of sight and hearing.

Shrinker began to believe that the man really suffered from amnesia. He believed that nobody could fake it that long, so he decided not to waste any more time on this hopeless case and turned to other duties. From time to time he would look in on him, only to find a babbling madman in a dark corner of a filthy cell. The few intelligible words he could utter were: "..HAVE to TURN it OFF..." and with that, grimy fingers with broken nails would press on the little mark on his neck where the homing device had once been. The skin had been damaged by this repeated act and was beyond healing, but that didn't stop Blind Bat from pressing so hard that it all started to bleed again.

And always he looked up expectantly with blind eyes as if a miracle was about to happen.


End file.
